Cuba in the NewsArchives: 9/04

Cuba to shut plants to save power 9/30/2004 BBC: "To help cope with the crisis, 118 factories, including steel plants, sugar mills and paper processors will be shut for the whole of October, said Vice-President Carlos Lage."

US Must Give Free Speech to Cuba, Iran Writers-OSCE 9/30/2004 Reuters: "The United States government should lift its ban on publishing literature from countries like Cuba, Iran and Sudan without special permission, Europe's biggest rights watchdog said on Thursday.
"Today, American publishers might face prison sentences and high fines if they fail to ask for a government license to publish literature from these countries," Miklos Haraszti, media freedom chief at the Vienna-based Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), said." This ignores the import of the Berman Amendment, which allows US purchse of informational materials, including books, films, music, and art.

Kerry Taps Controversial Elian Attorney 9/25/2004 NewsMax: "Kerry must have forgotten that after the Elian brouhaha record numbers of Cuban Americans in Florida voted against Al Gore – ceding the closely contested Florida race – and the presidency to George Bush.
The Miami Herald reported Saturday that "a lawyer unpopular with many Cuban Americans for his role in the Elián González case will help prepare John Kerry for the upcoming presidential debate to be held at the University of Miami.”
That lawyer’s name is Gregory Craig, a well-connected Washington attorney who represented Elian Gonzalez’s father."

When will the French press reveal the RSF leader’s friendships with terrorists? 9/24/2004 Granma: "In Miami, Ménard got friendly with several of those who led the campaigns to release Orlando Bosch and prevent Elián from returning to Cuba, and who purchased a pardon for Luis Posada Carriles. Bosch and Posada have a long-standing career of terrorism behind them going back some 45 years and that includes the mid-flight explosion of a Cubana Aviation aircraft with 73 passengers on board."

Celia Cruz Removed From U.S. Blacklist 9/23/2004 AP: "Salsa queen Celia Cruz was removed from a U.S. list of suspected communists in 1965 after she performed and raised money for groups trying to overthrow Cuban President Fidel Castro, according to newly released immigration documents.
U.S. officials suspected in the 1950s that Cruz, who died last year of a brain tumor, supported Castro's communist government. She was refused a visa at least twice starting in 1952 because U.S. law at the time forbade entry to foreigners affiliated with communists… "The record indicates that in July 1960 she fled as a defector from the Communist regime of Cuba," according to an Oct. 28, 1965, immigration service memorandum. "Since that time she has actively cooperated with anti-Communist, anti-Castro organizations through artistic performances and by campaigning for funds for those organizations." "

Anti-Cuba policy still coming
under attack 9/23/2004 Granma: "Florida’s importance in the upcoming elections is also evidenced by that fact that it is precisely the state selected by Bush and Kerry for their first televised debate on U.S. foreign policy and combating terrorism.
The tightening of the brigade, direct measures against the Cuban family, and even military threats by the present administration are coming under attack from a significant part of the Cuban community in Florida, the influential U.S. media, important political, economic and social sectors at home, and in forums and events at international level."

Contra Campaign 9/23/2004 Miami New Times: "The so-called Kerry Committee alleged that Rodriguez had helped steer $10 million from the notorious Medellín cocaine cartel to the contras. The committee concluded that trafficking was rampant in the rebels' effort… That was some seventeen years ago, but Rodriguez's hatred for Kerry -- and his closeness to the Bush family -- has driven Rodriguez from the CIA shadows onto the open political stage. He's railed against Kerry on Cuban radio and in the October edition of Soldier of Fortune magazine. He also jumped at the chance to join the Vietnam Veterans for Truth, an anti-Kerry group that invited Rodriguez to speak at a nationally televised September 12 rally at the Capitol… President Dick Cheney, who was then a congressman, played a key role in the disinformation campaign. He led the effort to squelch various Iran-contra investigations, especially when it came to drug allegations. And George W. Bush? Well, he seems to have no qualms about Iran-contra, since he has hired several of the scandal's central figures -- including Elliott Abrams, Otto Reich, and John Negroponte -- to serve under him… Perhaps the most damning allegation against Rodriguez comes from former Drug Enforcement Administration agent Celerino Castillo, a decorated Vietnam vet who was stationed in Central America during Iran-contra. While working for the DEA, Castillo says he became aware of drug trafficking at San Salvador's Ilopango air base, where Rodriguez was organizing the contra supply effort. The DEA agent has testified in Congress and recounted in his well-documented book, Powderburns, how the airport hangars controlled by Rodriguez and other government operatives were used by drug traffickers. "The only reason Felix wasn't arrested is because he knew where all the bodies were buried in the Iran-contra operation," says Castillo, who is now a substitute high school teacher living in Texas."

House OKs measures to ease Cuba sanctions 9/22/2004 AP: "A day after moving to nullify the Bush administration's new rules restricting family travel to Cuba, the House on Wednesday voted to remove barriers to agriculture sales and student exchanges in the island nation.
But, as in past years, actions by both the House and Senate to ease decades of economic and social sanctions imposed on Cuba are expected to make little headway against an administration determined not to make life easier for the Fidel Castro government.
The White House has threatened to veto a $90 billion Transportation and Treasury Department spending bill if it contains any language to weaken sanctions. The bill, for fiscal 2005 programs, passed 397-12."

Exile: President Bush has failed to bring democracy to Cuba 9/22/2004 Miami Herald: "Speaking at a Democratic Party rally Tuesday in Little Havana, a prominent Miami exile figure denounced President Bush as leading ``probably the worst administration we've ever had on Cuban policy.''
The remark by Joe Garcia, former executive director of the Cuban American National Foundation, signals what could be an unprecedented battle for Hispanic voters in the upcoming presidential race… Garcia left CANF this month to accept a post with the New Democrat Network, a recruitment arm of the Democratic National Party that is launching a $6 million media campaign targeting Hispanics."

Top-secret affair 9/22/2004 Sun Sentinel: "I was in Cuba from 1958 to 1961 and then the U.S. broke relations with the country," he said. "Havana was a very prosperous city in 1958. The U.S. helped the Cuban military until almost six months before Castro took power. As of Jan. 1, 1959, the CIA was against him. What happened in 1961 with the Bay of Pigs was a grave mistake. If Nixon would've been president, it wouldn't have happened."

U.S. House votes to ease embargo 9/22/2004 Sun Sentinel, FL: "In a show of growing impatience with the U.S. embargo of Cuba, the U.S. House approved amendments on Wednesday that would ease the sale of food and medicine to the island and remove obstacles to student-exchange programs."

In Stricter Study, U.S. Scales Back Claim on Cuba Arms 9/18/2004 NYT: "The Bush administration, using stringent standards adopted after the failure to find banned weapons in Iraq, has conducted a new assessment of Cuba's biological weapons capacity and concluded that it is no longer clear that Cuba has an active, offensive bio-weapons program, according to administration officials."

There’s another ill wind in the Caribbean 9/14/2004 Philadelphia Tribune: "Many living in Caribbean Basin nations share the ill-wind view of the Bush administration, according to Eugene Godfried, a reporter for Radio Havana in Cuba who was born on the Caribbean island of Curacao.
“The Bush administration has a very negative perception in the Caribbean. Many see the Bush administration as absurd and warmongering,” Godfried said during an interview at the Convention Center when he was in Philadelphia covering the NAACP Convention in July.
“The Bush administration is seen as a repetition of European colonialism,” continued Godfried, a brown-skinned, middle-aged man with a soft smile and serious aspect.
“European colonialism destroyed the indigenous people in the Caribbean. There were mass killings and enslaving of people to control the natural resources of the Caribbean,” Godfried noted.
“What is happening in Iraq today is the same as Europeans in the Caribbean, beginning in the 15th Century. Bush invaded Iraq to control its oil.” "

Amid Cheers, Terrorists Have Landed in the U.S. 9/12/2004 LA Times: "I think you can create conditions so that those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world," Bush recently said in an interview.
But the decision to allow members of the Posada gang into this country, and the televised spectacle of Miamians applauding their return, sends a different and dangerous message: In a swing state, some terrorists are not only acceptable but welcome."

Think Tank Blasts Bush Commission Report on Cuba 9/9/2004 AntiWar: "The changing politics of the Cuban-American community was underlined just last week when the executive director of its most prominent anti-Castro lobby group, the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF), Joe Garcia, abruptly resigned his post to join the New Democrat Network (NDN).
"Joe is going to send a message to Cuban-Americans that they are welcome in the Democratic Party," said Simon Rosenberg, NDN's executive director."

Geezers make gas 9/8/2004 Progreso Weekly: "GAS, or Geezers Assassination Society, a Miami source claims, refers to a secret club formed by four recently pardoned anti-Castro terrorists, all in their twilight years. The group offered honorary membership – women can only become honorary members – to outgoing Panamanian president Mireya Moscoso, who on August 26, released the convicted men… GAS stole its credo – Viva la Muerte! – from Nazi pilots during the Spanish Civil War (1936-9)… Posada’s wife told a Venezuelan journalist of her mate’s emotions. “When he started with the Barbados affair, I knew he would be successful because the ‘poor guy’ had dedicated so much effort, with so much passion” (We Placed the Bomb and So What, by Alicia Herrera)… When the newly freed Novo landed in Miami in late August he passed quickly through U.S. Immigration. Luckily for him, his name wasn’t Ted Kennedy or the authorities would have questioned him about terrorist connections. “We beat you,” Novo crowed to Fidel, who wasn’t listening."

Suicide? 9/8/2004 Progreso Weekly: "José Martín, a Cuban émigré, was a babalawo (priest) in the Yorubá religion, 55 years old, with two sons and a wife in Miami. He also owned a travel agency specializing in Cuba that provided enough income for a decent living and especially allowed him to travel to the island with the frequency he required. In Cuba lived his autistic son and his elderly, ailing father. Like any other émigré of any other nationality, he had a need to help both, especially his beloved son. To Martín, it must have been extremely painful to sit before a son who looked at him but didn't see him, to whom he talked but received no reply, who may have been totally unaware of Martín's presence because of the mysterious turns of the disease.
At the end, both sides of the Straits of Florida pulled at Martín's heart as if he were on a torture rack and broke it. And because Martín owned a revolver, he committed suicide on Friday the 27th of August… According to Bush's new dispositions, Martín would be unable to visit his family until the year 2007. Would the cancer afflicting his father wait three years? Would his son remain immersed in the depths of his autism? Martín would be unable to buy his son the paper and crayons with which the boy could draw the shadows and lights of his inner world, one of his typical rituals, as his friends say."

SIU ABLE TO RESEARCH IN CUBA AGAIN 9/8/2004 Southern Illinoisan: "The door to Cuba is open again to Southern Illinois University.
University officials and Southern Illinois congressmen successfully convinced the U.S. Department of Treasury to restore SIU's license for research on the communist Caribbean island, after it previously had been revoked. SIU was one of many American universities hit with the current presidential administration's harder line against communication with Cuba. SIU's license expired June 30, and government officials did not renew the document."

A Cruel Hoax in Tampa 9/3/2004 Timba.com: "It was like a Rockford Files con game -- after collecting thousands of dollars from eager Charangueros, charging for parking, and even going so far as to set up the instruments on stage just as CH sets them up (albeit with a telltale trapset in place of CH's signature timbales with kick drum), the fraudulent promoters slipped out the back door with the cash, leaving the confused sound technicians, convention center employees and local police to deal with an angry mob of jilted timberos. So the answer to the mystery question (How did CH get entry visas?) is, simply: They didn't. Turns out they're in Italy. After 4 years of musical prohibition under Mullah Omar Bush, this was the last thing the long-suffering American Timba fans needed."